116 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1918-18 



of their sedentary existence; but still the nights are long and weary and half 

 their life is spent in bed. Longer days mean travel, migrations to new sealing 

 grounds and visits from friends in other communities. It is then, about 

 February or the early part of March, that the Akulhakattangmiut combine 

 with the Puivlirmiut and Noahognirmiut, and the Coppermine river natives 

 come north to the neighbourhood of Locker point, whence some continue 

 west and visit the Dolphin and Union strait Eskimos. Farther east the Pingang-' 

 naktok and Kilusiktok natives meet, and some of the Ekaluktomiut and Asiag- 

 miut often visit them. Dances are held almost nightly in honour of both 

 visitors and hosts, and a brisk barter is carried on. Both at this time and later 

 the groups rearrange themselves, some of the local group returning with the 

 visitors to their sealing-grounds, while some of the new-comers in turn stay 

 with the group they came to visit. 



A migration of a whole community is a wonderful sight. In the autumn> 

 when the Eskimos are moving out to their sealing-grounds, they have to start 

 with their sleds before dayhght in order to reach their destinations before dark. 

 Time is everything at that season of the year, and often half the journey is 

 made in twilight. In spring, on the other hand, there is no need for haste, for 

 the air is mild and pleasant, and the daylight as long as the darkness has been 

 in the winter. No definite hour is set for the migration, no definite day even, 

 for in a land where the only calendars are the seasons one day is no better than 

 the next. The natives are not accustomed therefore to plan all their movements 

 beforehand, and to carry them out with the exactitude of clockwork. Conversa- 

 tion usually simmers on the subject for several days before a migration takes 

 place, and nothing is decided; then one evening a man will suddenly announce 

 to his wife that he intends to move next day. The rumour quickly spreads 

 from house to house, and others announce their intention of accompanying him. 

 Next morning everyone is on the alert. Someone enters a hut and announces 

 that so-and-so is packing up. Everyone begins to do the same, and soon the 

 settlement is a hive of industry. Breakfast is finished quickly, or even forgotten 

 in the excitement. The man goes out, takes down his sled from its stand, and 

 trims the mud runners with his knife; his wife, in the meantime, crushes some snow 

 in the pot so that when he re-enters there will be water all ready to pour over 

 the mud. He carries it out, fills his mouth with it, streams it along the runners, 

 and before it freezes quickly rubs it over with a pad of polar bear skin so as to 

 leave a perfectly smooth coating of ice.' Finally the sled is ready; he turns it 

 right side up, and lays on the bottom all the heavy bales that have been resting 

 on the house wall. Then he cuts a great hole in the side of the house, or takes 

 out the ice window behind the lamp, and calls to the inmates to pass out the 

 things. 



All this time the wife has been busily packing indoors. Odd garments; 

 sewing material, knives, and other miscellaneous articles are hastily stuffed into 

 bags. The pot is taken down and emptied, the lamp extinguished, and the 

 blubber packed into a skin bag. . Then while the children pass out the sleeping 

 skins through the opening in the wall the woman herself scours out the lamp 

 with her forefinger, carefully lashes it inside a sealskin, and thrusts it through 

 the doorway into the passage, since it is generally too heavy to lift up through 

 the opening in the wall. Its usual place on the sled is near the bottom, above 

 the willow bed-matting or on top of the bales of clothing; here too the ice 

 wmdow generally finds a place. The drying-rack is taken out with all its contents, 

 and the table and its supports; the ends of the latter are often frozen into the 

 wall, and have to be chipped out with the ice-chisel. - 



The husband carefully packs all these things on the sled, while his wife 

 indoors (or outdoors, if the weather is mild) changes her old grease-stained 



'Polar bear skin is preferred to any other kind because water does not adhere to the fur. 



